Arc
by trufflemores
Summary: 3.23 AU. Everyone deserves a happy ending. Savitar's full story comes out.


"When I was twenty-seven-years-old, my life ended. My body hasn't caught up to it yet.

"I ran the length of the Magnetar, over and over. My lungs were on fire. My feet burned. I could feel the cancer spreading through me. It moved from my hands to my chest, radiating outward to my head, down to my feet. I knew I had only minutes left to act. I wasn't keeping track, but I suspect it was around the one hundredth lap that things took a turn for the worse.

"I was running out of strength. My legs were failing; I had to do something. The Magnetar had gone critical. Thirty more seconds and there wouldn't be a multiverse to save. I couldn't let Zoom win.

"I was half-blind and desperate to end the pain. It was like running inside an active volcano. The air was searing. It burned my eyes and throat. I couldn't speak, but I could still see Zoom.

"I watched him receding from me, envying his full body suit. He was shielded: he barely felt the machine that was killing me.

"Anger is a powerful motivator. It kept me going where love of the multiverse could not. I knew what I had to do to win. Chasing him down wasn't enough. I had to stop both him and his machine. I needed to be in two places at once.

"I had to create a time remnant. A temporal duplicate. A version of me so identical that the multiverse wouldn't recognize us as distinct entities. We would think the same. Talk the same. Experience the same sensations. It was like having a twin, but more powerful. We would be the same person, viewing the world from two sides.

"I didn't know where I ended and he began. It didn't matter. When we looked at each other, I saw myself from both sides. I knew one of us was going to die. I even knew it was me.

"I was the clone and this was my world. But the time traveler – the one-second-older version of me – had a privilege I could never make up for. He had that one second. While I ran blindly towards destiny, he appeared suddenly beside me. To him, it was the opposite effect; he had already passed the point I was just crossing, and to him I appeared. I was the expendable one.

"I was destined to die.

"In one lifetime, I did. The first time we ran the gauntlet, I went up in flames. Well. My ancestor did. I didn't experience it then. I didn't even know about his death until the smoke had faded and I had fled to the Speed Force. I was supposed to die. I was supposed to burn.

"I burned myself on that cosmic treadmill, running until all I could hear was the roar of the machine drowning out my screams. I couldn't make a sound. From the outside, it was very clinical. If I didn't suffer, then it was okay. A noble death. But I couldn't vocalize my suffering. You decided I was not.

"I was supposed to die at 11:42 PM on May 24, 2016.

"I didn't, yet the agony was seated so deeply in my chest that it uprooted all other sensation. Then the Magnetar imploded. Carried blindly by my own momentum, I was cast away from ground zero. Delirious with pain, I stood up in a forgotten corner of the world, found my footing, and ran back home.

"My twin was waiting for me. He could sense my presence, far away and closing, just as I could sense his. We watched the world through two sets of eyes.

"Through his eyes, I looked like a monster. Staggering closer, the entire right half of my face was still burning with red lightning. I looked demonic. I switched perspectives and I saw and felt and knew his repulsion like it was my own.

"He didn't need to say it. _We didn't plan for you_. I tried to speak, to reassure them, to negotiate with them, but I couldn't find my voice. The Magnetar had robbed me of everything but my footing. Even then, my legs trembled.

"But this wasn't his world. This was _my_ world. I told him, 'Get away from them.' My other half drew closer to our family. I could feel his unease, his refusal to be driven away. 'Get away from them,' I repeated. It hurt to speak. None of them listened. _He's not your Barry_ , I wanted to say. _He's not yours_.

"I did the only thing I could: I challenged him. Flashing forward, I caught myself from both vantage points, a charging red fury and a standing storm, waves crashing against the two of us as fire vulcanized in my veins. I caught him and drove him to the ground. Before I could act, pain from every point of contact erupted. The fight hadn't even begun and it was over.

"Holding me down, he didn't need to say it. He belonged; I did not. He had chosen this universe for his own. He had taken it from me. 'Why are you doing this?' he asked.

"'Because they're _my family_.'

"The negotiations only lasted five seconds. Iris said, 'Let him go.' My doppelganger didn't respond. 'Barry,' she repeated, and just like that, he let go. We both knew what it meant. She had named _him_. He was her Barry.

"They were all watching me, and from one perspective, I stood with them. I saw the lone speedster standing across from them. Shaking and snarling, he felt less real than the solid speedster standing in line with his family. He felt fragile. Unstable. Like there was a hope he might disappear yet and make this easier on everyone. If he had died, then they wouldn't even be having this conversation. But now he was here. _I_ was here. And I was a threat.

"Iris said his name and that was the only warning I got before my doppelganger Flashed forward. He pinned my arms behind my back. I twisted and shouted and kicked at him, but I couldn't free myself. I fell to my knees. He loosened his grip, our grip, but I didn't run. I felt retired, out of use. Unfixable.

"We stood there for a long time, hovering between worlds. He didn't know what to do. I could sense it. _Kill me_ , I replied, bowing my head. It was the only time I would have let him do it. I was in pain and I couldn't escape it. And they didn't even recognize me. _Kill me_.

"At last, he let go. Joe said, 'Bar' and he – _we_ walked over, ignoring the hunched figure on the pavement. We were one and the same, sharing two bodies. We hugged Joe. We hugged Iris and Caitlin, too. We looked back and I saw myself, and I saw _him_ , and I realized he would have what I never could. His family.

"I straightened and Iris stepped forward, but Wally called her off. 'Iris, don't.' _He's a monster._ Her Barry – my other half, the _chosen one –_ stepped up beside her, and she put her arm around his back. I could feel it across my own, warm and steady. I could also feel the cracked ribs I'd been ignoring. I could feel the strength and pounding pulse and suffocating weakness shared between us.

"I don't know what happened next. My world went dark. For me, everything vanished; for him, it carried on. I followed him, sharing his exultation. We had stopped Zoom. Our family was safe. _We_ were safe. We were strong and healthy and whole, and if there was a sinister side of me that was always aware we had broken something irreparably, it didn't bother him. So it didn't stop me.

"We walked home. For hours, we pretended that the world was normal, that the time remnant was well and truly gone. But then _his_ world went dark, too.

"I opened my eyes in the Speed Force.

"Big Brother was waiting for me."

Clearing his throat, Savitar reorients himself. They're in his – Barry's – apartment. Barry himself is seated on the couch. Iris has her legs tucked underneath her on a chair across from him, keeping a tasteful distance from them. It keeps things civil. Savitar can appreciate that. Barry hates it, and Savitar can't help but feel satisfied. It's only fair.

Pacing their floor, Savitar has come to a halt behind a chair with a hand on it. Barry's eyes follow him, displaying a silver reflection no non-speedster could see. Savitar smiles, closing his eyes and slipping across the proverbial barrier between them, letting himself enjoy Barry's muscular warmth, reserved tension, and cool rage.

 _You killed Iris._

Holding the bond, Savitar opens his eyes and sees from Barry's perspective that his are glowing silver, too.

 _We're more alike than you know._

Drawing in a deep breath, he centers himself and reclaims his own body. Then he walks around the chair. Barry tenses visibly. Iris doesn't move, her gaze soft and curious. With deliberate slowness – the bond is one-way; Barry has no idea what he has planned – Savitar sinks into the seat. He looks at Barry and silently challenges him to protest.

Barry exhales through his nose, calm-with-an-effort, and Savitar looks right at him when he says, "Big Brother is the monster I will become."

Barry straightens his shoulders. "That doesn't have to happen."

Savitar smirks and looks away. "I killed him. It already happened."

At the same time, Barry and he Flash. When they slow down Barry has him up against a wall, an arm pressed with ferocious intent against his throat. Savitar can feel it under his skin, then, and he puts both hands on Barry's head and shoves the idea at him, as hard as he can, _Big Brother, Big Brother, Big Brother—_

They tumble down together and hit the ground in that place of perfect stillness. From the darkness, a blue glow emerges. The hairs on the back of Savitar's neck stand, but Barry holds his ground, jaw square, gaze sharp and wary. Suited up, Big Brother doesn't look half as frightening as he does with it off.

A conversation they had centuries ago replays slowly, step-for-step.

" **God, I wish I could kill you** ," Big Brother growls in a voice eons deep.

With resigned fatigue, Barry-Savitar replies, " **So do it**."

Big Brother steps forward. He's in full form, suited-up. His eyes glow a sickening shade of red. " **You don't get off that easy**." He kneels and steps out of the suit, and Barry-Savitar feels a thrill of horror as his own face stares back at him, clouded blue eyes unseeing. " **You'll have to forgive me,** " he says, eyes trained on a point over Barry-Savitar's shoulder. " **August 15, 2771. Make sure you look at something nice before sunset.** "

" **Who the hell are you?** " Barry-Savitar's mouth is dry.

When Big Brother smiles, it looks like it hurts. " **A distant relative.** " Stepping closer, he muses, " **It's unfair.** " Barry-Savitar holds his ground as his older doppelganger intrudes on his space. He stops arm's length away. In a dangerous growl, he says, " **You get to** ** _see_** **.** " A hand closes around Barry-Savitar's throat with lethal intent and lifts him clean off the ground. Baring his teeth in a familiar snarl, Big Brother demands, " **What the hell do you need eyes for?** "

Barry-Savitar can't breathe – shouldn't need to, here, but the pain spasms through him, intense and too close. " **Well**." Big Brother drops him. " **Here's the deal**." Before Barry-Savitar can recover his footing, Big Brother Flashes and shoves him up against an invisible wall. Scrabble though they might, Barry-Savitar's feet don't touch the ground. " **You kill me.** "

He flinches automatically. " **You're sick** ," he says in a low voice.

Big Brother's eyes practically dance with blue light. " **Sick enough to do what needs to be done**." A claw sinks into his right shoulder with a bite so powerful he can't even scream, pinning him to the wall as Big Brother paces away. " **You kill me, and I kill him**."

Gasping, clawing at the metal embedded in his bone, Barry-Savitar asks, " **Who?** "

" **The one who did this to us.** "

Dizzy with pain, Barry-Savitar can barely speak. " **What are you talking about—** "

Big Brother yanks the claw out of his shoulder and Barry-Savitar howls, events overlapping, a pain that is familiar and old and breathtakingly new sweeping over him. " **I'm breaking the rules** ," Big Brother snarls, silencing him with a hand around his throat, " **because I'm not waiting for this anymore. I'm taking it. You felt that, didn't you? When the timeline just—** "

With his free hand, Big Brother snaps his fingers. Barry-Savitar flinches like it's his neck.

" **Oh, we did it now** ," he says, all but purring with glee. " **Flashpoint. We messed up. Because I got to meet** ** _you_** **. This shouldn't be possible. But, see, the more you mess with time, the less the rules apply to you.** "

Bright lights flicker warningly across Barry-Savitar's vision. Big Brother lets him go and two time wraiths become visible, one standing behind either shoulder. Their subservient stances make Barry-Savitar feel sick. " **You were supposed to die that day,** " Big Brother says without sympathy. " **You did. In one lifetime**." A violent image of catastrophic death vanquishes the pain in his shoulder, dwarfing it in the ultimate agony as he disintegrates. Shaking, he steps back, but Big Brother mimics him, stepping forward.

" **But in the** ** _Flashpoint_** **timeline, you are two percent faster the day you face off with Zoom than you were the first time. Over three years, you pushed yourself just a little bit** ** _harder_** **. You became** ** _better_** **, Barry.** " His name sounds like an expletive on Big Brother's tongue. " **You destroyed your relationship with Cisco to get two percent faster.** "

The idea of an argument emerges and submerges before Barry-Savitar can take hold of it, but the pain bleeds poisonously outward, an infected reminder that they never got away with it. They never get away with any of it. " **How does it feel?** " Big Brother asks. He doesn't wait for an answer, proceeding with brutal force. " **To know you sacrificed your best friend for the opportunity to stop Zoom? Was it worth it?** " When he falls to his knees, Big Brother drags him back to his feet, relentless and sharp. " **Your doppelganger was one second ahead. He ran back in time and created you. The two of you stopped the Magnetar before it could kill you.** "

Staring into his soul, Big Brother says softly, " **If you were two percent slower than you'd been the first time, you both would have died. These kinds of margins are** ** _miniscule_** **."** He emphasizes the word with a shove. " **You couldn't get it right twice.** " Smirking, he adds, " **'Right' would have meant that you died, which would have been the end of me, too. I should thank you. If you weren't a failure, I wouldn't exist.** "

Stalking closer, he growls, " **I'm who you become. I'm the monster you're turning into. Because you know what,** ** _Barry_** **? You don't** ** _have_** **a home anymore. This is all we have."** He points over his shoulder, indicating the two time wraiths. They don't make a sound, anxiety and a profound fear holding outrage at bay. " **You're a body in the ground** ," he finishes in disgust.

Barry-Savitar can't accept that. He shakes his head. " **No**."

" **You're nobody. Go home. See what happens.** " Big Brother walks away. The time wraiths follow him. " **And when you see this is a hell you can't escape, you'll do what I want.** "

Barry breaks away with a shout, staggering backward, and Savitar opens his eyes. Iris is on her feet, alarmed, and Savitar can tell by the brusqueness of Barry's break-away that they'd Flashed, slowing the world down. All she saw was Barry shoving him against the wall.

He steps forward and feels himself sink into Barry's skin, the horror and pain and shattering fear an echo of his own. Big Brother was the man – the monster – _time wraiths_ feared. The injuries he inflicted during that first encounter never fully healed: it's the reason why their right shoulder still aches, despite the time that has passed since Savitar himself stabbed him. He just didn't know it yet.

Barry's pain washes over him, a reminder of the self-inflicted injury that knocked them both off their feet. Savitar fled and Barry made it home – barely. Savitar could feel the burn in his shoulder for days, could feel everything if he chose to. But he has learned, for his own sake, how to shut out Barry. It became a tremendous effort to let him back in, to know what he was _planning_. He did it in bursts, shutting out the emotions and zeroing in on the things he needed to know.

Cisco in the rafters, Iris on another Earth, Wally's plan to protect her, _we're a family_ —

Stepping back to himself, Savitar meets Barry's eyes. He looks cowed. Savitar smirks. _Good_.

"Still want to know?" he asks dryly. "We haven't even gotten to the good stuff."

Barry bares his teeth. Iris steps forward and Savitar tenses. When she doesn't stop, stepping right up to him, he has to look away. He has to. Because if he looks right at her and sees her as Barry does, he'll die of heartbreak.

" **She was the love of my life.** " His 2024 doppelganger shuddered in anguished rage before Barry, walking away and sinking to the floor. He was what was left of a man who had made sixty-one attempts to stop his own doppelganger from killing her. Again. And again. And again.

 _Except us_.

Looking at Barry, eyes ablaze, Savitar sees it: the echo of Big Brother's snarl, the rage so hot it was blinding white, the emotional break between him and reality. The man who would become a monster in the wake of a tragedy unspeakable. A Barry aged five thousand years.

2017 Barry looks ready to kill him, Savitar thinks with a hint of amusement, gaze drifting to focus on anything-but-Iris'.

Then she cups his cheek and he cannot look away from her.

Straining to hold the dam up against the flood of emotions, he stares. She brushes her thumb against his cheek and memories flicker like fireflies, countless kind gestures bestowed on his luckier twin. His twin who never knew the nightmares he did.

"Let's take a break," she suggests quietly, and Savitar doesn't even think about Barry, doesn't look away from her. Mesmerized by her.

" **Please. Don't do this. Don't do this!** "

Shuddering, he closes his eyes. It's too much. Being in the same room as _Barry_ , the man she still loves, flooded with the weight of his emotions, Savitar wants to love her. He wants to love her and love her and love her until his heart breaks all over again.

But he can't. He has spent too many years unlearning the instinct to accept and welcome every Iris as _his Iris_. He's learned to hate doppelgangers, to replace them without flinching, to accept the multiverse as it is rather than as he wants it to be.

" **I'm begging you. I'm** ** _begging_** **you.** "

Iris cups his face, and God, it hurts more than anything Big Brother ever did to him.

He can't move. He couldn't if he caught fire. She has him, and she has always had him, and it never mattered that she was never his. She still sees him as _hers_.

Letting him go slowly, she doesn't move away. He barely breathes. Her Barry watches them closely, and Savitar looks at him. He steels himself before he says it.

"We don't have time."

Harrison Wells agreed to talk with Tracy Brand, but neither Barry nor he know if Wells will succeed, let alone if he will do so in time.

 _I killed her partner_.

Savitar smiles ruefully.

He won't.

It doesn't matter. He isn't afraid to die. He's already died countless times, participating in an elaborate series of suicides that stretch across the centuries. They rise and fall in waves, in Savitars who are ruthless and Savitars who are almost kind, intersecting inopportunely and annihilating each other. Even Savitar himself can't keep track of it.

He likes Big Brother's mantra: _The more you mess with time, the less the rules apply to you_.

All he knows is that the paradox is looming. He's already fulfilled one half of the bargain.

" **You kill me. Then I kill him**."

Iris backs off, taking a seat again. Savitar does not join her, prowling across the floor, away from both her and Barry.

"Big Brother was ruthless," he tells them. "The kind of ruthless that makes your teeth hurt. He gave me a simple choice. Either I killed them, or he would."

"Who?" Barry asks quietly, but his gaze says he already knows.

 _You_ is too impersonal. "Us," he says, and it's almost too much. _Our doppelgangers_.

There's silence between them. They don't have time for it to stretch. Savitar proceeds. "Big Brother killed some of them. I killed the rest.

"This went on for years. After a point, it stopped mattering _why_. Dominance. Eminence. Prestige. Take your pick. Behind it all was Big Brother's insanity. He didn't care who he hurt. He didn't care how many people died. He wanted to teach me a lesson. _All of them are expendable_. Including you." Looking right at Barry, he clarifies, "Including _us_."

"I'm not you," Barry says quietly. "You're a murderer."

"You've killed before.

"But you're right. We're not the same.

"We haven't been the same since that night, but the day Big Brother came back was the day the world ended for me. I did die May 24. I just didn't know it until it was too late.

"See, if he never came back – if he stayed in his own future – then he would have been the only casualty. _I_ would have been the only casualty.

"That's the thing about time travel: I shouldn't exist in two universes.

"But he did come back, and he set this whole chain into motion. I killed him when it was clear he would kill _me_ – there was only enough room for one Barry Allen, after all – and then he – we – would kill you.

"First, I had to kill her. That would drive you so deep into the darkness that you would spend almost a year traveling back in time trying to save her. You would make sixty-one attempts. You would fail sixty-one times. Every time, you would meet a younger version of yourself. And I would kill them. Every single one – except you. 2024 you, that is. Future you.

"Sixty-one deaths on your hands in less than a year, all because you couldn't move on with your own life, accept your own fate, your own misery. Why did _other_ Barrys get to live happy lives while you _suffered?_ It wasn't fair. You had to fix it. But you couldn't. And you left slaughter in your wake.

"Eventually, you would give up on the straightforward approach. But you hadn't stopped trying to fix it. You never knew when to quit. It would take almost four years before Tracy Brand created the trap that would lock me into the Speed Force for four thousand, nine hundred, and eighty-two years."

Exhuming the poison of that time, Savitar continues. "I watched myself murder her. Over. And over. And over again. From your perspective, I pleaded for her life until my throat bled and my lungs were raw, chasing an infinity I could never catch, straining towards a solution that wasn't out there. I was both of us. I hated every second.

"I begged the Speed Force to take my life, but it didn't. What life could it take away? I wasn't even _alive_ in Speed Force. I was trapped, twenty-nine-forever.

"I watched her die until I was both participants in every scene.

"Most people would have lost their minds.

"I channeled the madness, directing my pain at the Speed Force itself. I hated what it had done to me. That I _cared_ about this. I wanted out. Big Brother wasn't going to help me; I'd killed him already. If I wanted to beat the Speed Force, I had to _become_ him. I had to take his identity and become the Savitar of legend.

"Big Brother was a preview of the monster I was becoming.

"He was me, remembered everything, and he made sure the escape route would be there. He took me everywhere, across the centuries, and I saw his mark written in history. _Savitar_. People feared him. And once my ascension was complete, they would fear _me_. I would repeat the cycle, escaping with the philosopher's stone he emplaced, using Alchemy to prepare the world for my arrival. I couldn't break free with the Speed Force set against me, but I had just enough sway with it to cast a part of me out into the world.

"The Flash became my greatest weapon."

Eyes glowing gold, Barry stands on the opposite side of the room and watches him with an attentiveness that belies the Speed Force there, the Ghost which is part of and independent from him present. Both of them watch him intently, ready to act.

Savitar knows the feeling. Flash and he were the team that rebelled against Big Brother's orders long after the human side of him wanted to end it, _tried_ to end it. Except Big Brother was always watching and never let him.

Flash was the reason he retained his humanity. The Speed Force which tortured him was also the Speed Force that kept him sane.

And as the otherworldly dweller in the multiverse, it was also his escape.

"I communicated with Julian through the Ghost, using the philosopher's stone as an improvised lightning rod." Looking at Iris, he needn't say the obvious: _I'd killed my first one_. "Eventually, I had everything in place – I just needed someone to take _my_ place.

"You fought The Flash," he tells Barry, who does not even blink, those golden eyes fixed on him totally. "When we first met. Cold–"

Shaking his head almost fondly, Savitar finishes, "Cold is the one thing the Speed Force can't stop. Here, that is. There? You're doomed. You will never escape Speed Force in its own element.

"The Flash fought both of you when Cisco opened the box. I was so _close_." The growl that escapes him is animalistic. He feels defensiveness well up in Barry as Barry steps closer to Iris, putting himself in front of her. "I would have given anything to escape. Everything.

"But once I was free…" Savitar curls a hand around a kitchen chair, sighing fondly. "To be _free_ , Barry.

"No Big Brother.

"No Speed Force traps.

"Just me. Me, myself, and I," he clarifies with a smile, nodding at Barry, to himself, to Big Brother. "We had one more job. To turn you into him. The Barry who would lock me into the Speed Force. And then around and around we would go."

"What's the point?" Barry asks quietly.

Savitar Flashes forward and shoves him so hard he topples backwards over the coffee table. "To be _a god_ ," Savitar says, countering Barry's left-hook with a bone-breaking downward slash, pleasure overtaking him as Barry's arm br-re-reAKS, first in slow-motion and then all at once, a sharp, burning pain in his own shoulder that knocks Barry back a step. "To be free of you and everything you took from me. You _ruined_ me."

He feels the shift from Barry's perspective: blue lightning lunges between them, surging through Savitar and forcing him back a step. Still smoldering, Barry warns in a thunderous tone, " _Back_ the _fuck_ off."

He doesn't want to. He _wants_ to fight, wants to best this Barry who threw him to the ground, who forced him to _watch_ his _family_ reject him, and he throws a punch and makes contact, yes, _yes_ —

" **Fight me** ," Big Brother growls, awash in lightning, and Savitar-Barry is exhausted and hurting and doesn't want to, but Big Brother shoves him and he snarls with animal displeasure at the provocation, snaps when Big Brother shoves him _again_ , forcing him back into a corner. " **Fight me.** " A punch lands like a sledgehammer against his ribcage, one-two-three-four, and it hurts like hell but he _can't_ , he's too tired, lay off, come on—

" **The Speed Force doesn't care if you're tired**." A bruising blow to his face almost shatters his cheekbone. " **The Speed Force doesn't** ** _care_** **what you want. It wants what the Speed Force wants. You better be ready to fight it to your** ** _dying breath_** **, or it will take that, too."** The next jab to his collarbone draws a tormented yell from him, rebreaking the never-healing injury, and he wants to quit but Big Brother doesn't quit and never can he.

" **Fight me** ," he insists, shoving him to the ground. " **I know I'm in there. I** ** _know_** **.** " A rib-cracking kick draws a curse from him as he curls around his side, aching to go _home_ , he doesn't care where, he doesn't care that he'll have to kill another Barry to do it, they'll get used to him eventually and – " **We're the same. You just don't know it yet.** "

" **I'm not you** ," Savitar-Barry slurs. " **I'm** ** _better_**."

He deserves the knockout blow.

Sitting on top of Barry, pinning his hands down, Savitar knows he's fucking up any chances of acceptance, _stop it_ , but he can't surrender the high ground. He can't make himself back off. Barry's panting in pain and he can feel it like his own, body alight with their pain, and it doesn't move him. He's learned to withstand it.

" **I'm better** ," Savitar-Barry gasps, as he plunges a hand through Big Brother's chest and crushes his heart.

Light in his eyes flickering, Big Brother finds a smile for the first time in a century and whispers: " **I'm** ** _free_**."

Ashamed and horrified at the tears in his eyes, Savitar Flashes off of Barry, grunting in muted discomfort when an impulse breaks across his back like a bolt of lightning. "One reason," Cisco says in a low voice, stepping towards him, and Iris-saw-everything Flashes through Savitar's mind before Cisco finishes, "give me one reason I shouldn't kill you."

"Cisco," Barry says from the floor, world-weary but firm, "don't."

"He's dangerous," Cisco insists, Vibe-goggles on, and Savitar doesn't blink, staring him down.

" **What happens if I sit on my ass?** "

Savitar vibrates a hand before shoving it, solid, against Cisco's chest.

" **You'll Reverse me?** "

" **No.** " Pointing, he says softly, " **Her**."

"Do it," he orders, and Cisco hits him with another impulse that knocks him back a step. Enraged, he pushes forward until they're arm's length, shouting, " _Do it!_ "

Barry grabs him and Savitar flips him over his shoulder fluidly, effortlessly, powerful and unafraid, and the third impulse is strong enough to rattle in his teeth but not enough to kill him. "Come on," he says, grabbing Cisco's shoulders, shaking him a little. "Come _on_."

Iris says firmly, " _Enough_ " and Savitar turns towards her.

He can feel Barry's terror and resistance like it's his own as he steps forward, eyes visibly ablaze, and catches his own golden reflection in _her_ eyes.

"You're not a fighter," she tells him, and he doesn't respond, closing the distance between them. Cisco Vibes again, another blast of sonic energy passing harmlessly by as Savitar side-steps at super-speed, and then he's right in front of her. He looms. She doesn't even flinch. "You're a _hero_. You protect people."

He has Big Brother's suit, Big Brother's legacy, Big Brother's scars, but looking right at her, he realizes he _isn't_ Big Brother. Yet.

Because Big Brother killed his Iris in cold blood.

 _You're still human if you love anything of this world._

He couldn't survive the pain as a human, and the Speed Force wouldn't let him die.

 _You will never escape the pain if you care about something enough_.

He looks at Iris, mask-less, alone, without Big Brother looming over his shoulder. Without the Speed Force chaining him to the bottom of the ocean, drowning him in his own worst nightmare, a reality that would dwarf every torture Big Brother ever put him through.

 _If you want to be free, nothing can hold you back_.

Acceptance of his fate was the only way to move forward.

 _You're a monster. An abomination. An aberration._

 _You shouldn't be here._

 _You don't belong here._

 _You could lay down and die. That's what they want._

 _Or you could become_ _ **better**_ _._

Savitar breathes shallowly, painfully aware of Big Brother's presence, forever-and-always, because _he is_ Big Brother.

 _You could escape the pain._

 _You will conquer the Speed Force. Time wraiths will fear you._

 _The world is yours._

 _The multiverse is yours._

He never wanted it. But he also didn't want to be at its mercy, to be forced to choose between his own life and a fight he didn't ask for.

 _You can be_ _ **better**_.

Savitar steps back. He steps back until he has room enough to lift a hand, and the implication is clear. It's slow enough that she can see it, and Iris watches it fearlessly, watches _him_ fearlessly, and he sees why The Flash kept her in its heart even when he couldn't, when he couldn't _breathe_ , didn't dare, and he lets his hand vibrate, and knows Cisco and Barry are both ready to intervene, and does nothing.

Then he angles the hand towards his own chest.

In the last second before contact, he closes his eyes, aching, aware of his doppelganger running for him and he won't be fast enough, can't be, Big Brother's last words a sigh on his lips:

 _I'm free_.

His solid hand presses against his heart. Tears stream down his face, stinging the right side, the nerve-raw fractures, and he groans softly, overcome by a mix of frustration and agony and deep, unending _need_ to—

 _Be better._

 _Be better._

 _Be better_.

It means different things: to improve, to become well, to rise above.

Opening his eyes, he looks at her. And he sets his jaw, and he says, "I surrender."

He gives her his hands. "I surrender," he repeats, and somewhere in his soul the ghost of Big Brother revolts, but Big Brother is gone, and he can be what he always strove to be.

 _Better_.

Seconds from collapse, he squeezes her hands and turns towards her Barry, limping forward. He looks at him for as long as he can, trying to unseat the countless Barrys he has seen, begging him, pleading for their lives, Barrys who deserved happy endings, too. Barrys he can never absolve himself from killing.

He takes a step towards Barry and pauses, aware that Cisco still has his hands up warningly. Barry gets the message and closes the distance between them, sparing Savitar the need. His world blurs around the edges, casting a surreal air over everything. Darkness closes in. He finds his breaths coming easy.

"It's over," he tells Barry, and means it, in more ways than one. _The fight is over. The war is over._

 _My life is over_.

Barry rests a hand on his shoulder. The pain in his left arm is severe and unheeded. "No," he says, and together they sink, almost gently, into a pitch-black space Savitar knows.

He tenses in quiet anticipation, aware that he very much does not lord the same power Big Brother did over time wraiths. He knows Big Brother acquired the power through atrocities, killing _time wraiths_ to assert his control. He hasn't done that yet – and now, paradox closing in, he never will.

Big Brother will never exist.

 _I didn't kill Iris_.

The damage they did, the doppelgangers' lives they destroyed –

The paradox will reverse them, just as it will reverse him, an inextricable creation of Big Brother.

 _So many people are going to live because you didn't kill her_.

He's right: it does not absolve him of their murders because they will walk again. But he half-wishes he could outlast the paradox just long enough to see the results.

 _A multiverse without the monster_.

A strange sort of peace overtakes him, and then the Speed Force materializes, and it's not a person but a polar bear, sauntering forward, golden eyes regarding them. _Cherished One_ , it tells Savitar, and Savitar bows his head. _I Am Here_.

Barry squeezes his shoulder, left arm healed, and says, "Go."

Savitar nods once, and Barry lets go, vanishing.

Closing the distance between them, the Speed polar bear knocks its shoulder affectionately against his hip. Savitar traces a hand wonderingly down its back. _How can you forgive me?_

 _Because_ , sitting next to him, as tall as he is, the bear replies, _We Are Family._

Savitar sits next to it, startled at how warm it is, how _soft_ it is, the notion of a benevolent touch still difficult to swallow. He leans into its shoulder, feeling the strength pouring from it, and asks, _Why did you do this to me?_

In response, the bear presses back against him, and Savitar feels its overwhelming grief as it responds to the murder of the first time wraiths to try and take him. _Because We Had To_ , it says at last.

Rising, the bear idles forward, beckoning, _Follow Us._

Resting a hand on its shoulder, Savitar obeys.

He doesn't know where they're going, or if there even is a place for him, but with the Speed Force on his side, he knows he'll be _okay_.

 _I'm sorry_ , he tells it, and there isn't enough feeling to put behind it yet, lifetimes of apologies to be made.

 _You Will Be For A While_ , the Speed Force acknowledges. _And Then You'll Be Able To Move Forward. Come. Let's Run_.

Taking off, it gallops ahead, glowing brilliantly in the dark, and Savitar hesitates, afraid to leave the last place he knew he was, afraid to get lost in the Speed Force, but then he takes a step forward and anticipation floods him. Another step and he can't resist it, walking, trailing far behind, and the polar bear loops back and tackles him, a gentle, tremendous experience as he crashes into a powder of snow, before straightening and commanding, _Run!_

Getting to his feet, Savitar lets it nudge him, shoving its head back lightly, and actually laughs when it presses its nose against his chest and whuffs loudly. _Run!_

He doesn't need a third reminder; with a deep breath, he takes off, and the Speed Force chases him.

And for the first time in almost fifty centuries, he's _free_.

. o .

Barry reappears with a flourish. Closest to him, Cisco closes in for a tight hug. Barry holds on, savoring his realness, before letting go and squeezing his shoulder gently. "I'm always here for you," he tells him, "you know that, right?"

Cisco nods, and Barry pulls him in for one last hug before turning to see Iris, looking almost small in her vulnerability, _are-you-okay_ softening to _thank-god-you're-back_ as she walks towards him. He holds out his arms and she steps into them, trusting totally, his chin resting on her shoulder.

"I love you," he tells her, and she squeezes him lightly, wordlessly echoing it, as he insists softly, over and over, "I love you, I love you, I love you."

And loving her will always be the best thing he has ever done.


End file.
